Broken Stone 02 - Warlock's Sun Rising

by Damien Black

  Ivon’s teeth flashed in the firelight as he bent down towards the struggling Margrave. ‘What I have planned, my dear Narbo, is nothing less than the subjugation of the Free Kingdoms – a campaign to which I regret you are not invited.’

  ‘No! NOOOO!’ Rodger began kicking feebly, but Ivon sidestepped lightly. His movements seemed unnaturally quick.

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ said Ivon. ‘I’m not going to kill you just yet. No, I have much more interesting plans for you...’

  He barked an order to the squires in Panglian and they took Rodger’s legs. Together with their masters they lifted the struggling Margrave up like a sack of suet. Neither the squires nor the margraves showed the slightest emotion as they obeyed Ivon’s command. Turning to the fire he muttered some more words in the strange language and blew hard on the flames. The orange tongues rose and writhed together, forming a flaming ball that detached itself from the blaze and floated above them. He turned his dark eyes on Wolmar.

  ‘Come, my sweet princeling,’ he said. ‘I want to show you some local history.’

  Wolmar felt powerless to resist. What had been a subtle force on the penumbra of his consciousness was now a definite presence in his mind. It was as if by agreeing to serve the Margrave he had robbed himself of the will to refuse him anything.

  They made their way up out of the clearing, towards the ridge of hills that straddled the crevice from where the Athos gushed. Etched against the moon Wolmar could see the silhouette of a curiously shaped stone. A sense of foreboding seeped into him, contending with the roil of emotions that already stirred his soul.

  ‘I told you that my ancestors practised sorcery,’ said Ivon, chatting urbanely as though they were still on a pleasure trip, oblivious to Rodger’s pitiful wailing as they carried him up a trail through the wooded hills. ‘It’s said that Aaron the Bewitched stumbled on the rock in his early youth. He placed his ear to the strange stone and heard voices whispering to him. Some say this is what inspired him to learn his craft. They also called him Aaron the Deathless… long life his arts did grant him. Now that is a path I would fain follow my ancestor down.’

  After half an hour they emerged from the trees to the summit of the hills. The strange stone was about the size of a man and set on a flat outcropping of rock that overlooked the Athos. An aura of evil emanated from it. Wolmar felt the urge to flee but Ivon’s magic kept him rooted to the spot.

  ‘Who can say what manner of edifice the Elder Wizards built here?’ asked Ivon, excitement in his voice. ‘One of their legendary watchtowers, perhaps? Or maybe a palace, or even a ruin of some city – there are other stones like this one, dotted all over these hills.’ He raised his face to the bright heavens, staring at the stars and sickle moon. ‘Who can fathom what eldritch lore they learned when they listened to the celestial music in times far gone?’

  He turned to look Wolmar directly in the eye. The fireball burned overhead, giving his face a demonic look. ‘Long have I studied their arts, and I shall have the answer to that question!’

  ‘You!’ gasped Wolmar, as realisation dawned on him. ‘You’re the one who covets the Headstone!’

  Ivon smiled again. ‘The time is coming, Wolmar of Strongholm – the King of Gehenna shall return to take his rightful place as ruler of the Known World. The Master shall reward his servants as no mortal monarch ever could – and all who oppose Him shall be bound in fetters of burning brass! The pious and the holy shall taste the fate of the anti-angels!’

  Summoning up all his willpower, Wolmar jerked the knife from his belt and advanced towards the Margrave. Pointing at him Ivon closed his eyes and muttered a few more words. Their sound set his teeth on edge, cutting across Rodger’s screams as the others forced him down onto the stone. Wolmar cried out as the knife turned into a writhing serpent in his hand. As he let go of it Ivon muttered some more words and Wolmar stopped dead in his tracks. At his feet lay the knife. Had Ivon really transformed it, or was it just illusion magic? He would never know.

  Ivon opened his eyes and looked straight into Wolmar’s soul. ‘No hand shall you raise against me, Wolmar of Strongholm – no steel shall you wield to harm my person. So I have said in the Language of Magick, whose words bind the will as shackles restrain flesh!’ Turning to address the third squire he muttered a question in Panglian. The squire nodded and together they walked off, leaving Wolmar motionless as the fireball followed its arcane master. By its light he could see a slain boar on the other side of the outcropping. One of its tusks had been hewn off but the kill was fresh. Nodding to himself in satisfaction after inspecting it, Ivon reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out two objects. One was a small vial. The other was the boar’s missing tusk. He walked over to where Aravin and Kaye still held Rodger fast against the stone. The Margrave of Narbo had stopped struggling, though his body quivered spasmodically.

  ‘Try not to take this personally, Rodger,’ said Ivon, unstopping the vial and swallowing its contents. ‘But it’s time you died in a hunting accident. I know… such a cliché! But a corpulent, dull-witted sot like you hardly warrants originality.’

  Ivon’s body seemed to ripple in the light. Cocking his head to one side he let out a satisfied sigh. ‘I shall need the strength of a boar to simulate one,’ he said, smiling evilly.

  ‘NO!’ screamed Rodger. ‘I beg of thee! Spare my life and you can have all my lands!’

  Ivon bent down closer and addressed the Margrave in a low voice. He was still speaking in Decorlangue, so Wolmar could understand. ‘Oh, I don’t need to rule your lands directly,’ he said. ‘That’s not what I’m after tonight… In fact it’s not even your life I really want. It’s your soul I covet.’

  Rodger’s eyes widened. They looked fit to burst out of their sockets. The glaze had disappeared from them: sheer naked terror did wonders for sobriety.

  ‘Oh don’t be such a buffoon!’ snapped Ivon. ‘Did you really think it could end any other way? Body and soul, you’ve given yourself up to Creosoaneuryon and Satyrus – intemperance and lust have been your words of the day since you were old enough to drink and whore!’

  Ivon raised the tusk high above his head. He was shouting now. ‘The Princes of Perfidy yearn for you to join them in the City of Burning Brass! Age-old torments there await thee! Rich reward for the disciple who sends them what is rightfully theirs! Oh scions of Gehenna, receive now this sacrifice in the Wytching Hour – bolster my elan with anti-manna that I may serve thee even better!’

  He switched to speaking in the Language of Magick, sounding now as though he were singing a horrid cadence. Wolmar felt his heart stop and his skin crawl; beads of sweat stood out on the faces of the other men as he chanted aloud in the fell tongue. The alien stanzas seemed to last forever, dragging across time and space with an awful slowness…

  It almost seemed a mundane horror when Ivon stopped chanting and plunged the tusk deep into Rodger’s chest just below the sternum, raking effortlessly down towards his groin with a wet tearing sound. The Margrave of Narbo screamed and screamed. Discarding the tusk Ivon plunged his hands into the rent, pulling out his intestines in a gushing spurt of blood. Kaye and Aravin let go of the quivering Margrave and plunged their own hands into the wound, covering themselves in gore made black by night as Ivon pulled Rodger’s guts out, wrapping the gristly coils about him like a mantle.

  Raising his arms the warlock gazed up at the dark skies, his body trembling as his darker gods rewarded him with unseen gifts. Rodger’s screams subsided into choked moaning as his limbs convulsed horribly. The two squires let go of his legs and fell to the ground retching. Wolmar found himself doing the same, natural revulsion overcoming the unnatural power that held him spellbound.

  Ivon laughed and sank to his knees, drinking eagerly from the fount of blood that had once been the Margrave of Narbo. Rodger quivered some more and then the stillness of death came on him. Looking up from a pool of his own vomit Wolmar saw the Margrave’s eyes fixed sightlessly, his head turned to one sid
e. He had seen many dead bodies: but there was an emptiness in those eyes that made all the corpses of the world look like hale men.

  Raising his blood-drenched face to the heavens, Ivon grinned ghoulishly.

  ‘A most satisfactory service,’ he said, inverting the sign of the Wheel. Springing lightly to his feet, he uncoiled Rodger’s innards and stuffed them back into his belly. Then he closed the eyes, moulding the grimace into a less horrified expression of death.

  ‘There now,’ said the Margrave, stepping back to survey his handiwork. ‘A tragic death – killed during the chase! Just like my ancestor Perceval the Bold, he was killed by a stag you know… Now, my dear nobles, if I’m not mistaken, I think our trusty squires have prepared fresh hunting clothes for us. But first we should take another dip in the Athos, get rid of all this frightful blood…’

  CHAPTER XI

  Throwing Down the Gauntlet

  Vaskrian felt his spirits rise as they entered the registration booth. The Marshal was sat behind a trestle table with another knight. Before him were a quill and inkpot, and scrolls indicating the names of various competitors. He stared coldly as Braxus approached.

  ‘Name and lineage,’ he said flatly in Decorlangue. Vaskrian remembered him from the feast last night. Evidently Sir Urist knew them for the foreigners they were.

  ‘Sir Braxus of Gaellen, son and heir to Lord Braun, First Man of Clan Fitzrow.’

  Urist continued to stare at him. ‘You need to declare your noble birth as far back as your grandfather,’ he said.

  Vaskrian tensed slightly as Braxus met the knight’s stare. The sight of the lovely heiress of Dulsinor in the great hall had brought his guvnor back to life somewhat, but he was still in an ill humour.

  ‘Lord Morgan, First Man of Clan Fitzrow and father to Lord Braun,’ he said icily. Holding his hand up he brandished his signet ring. ‘Will you be wanting me to prove it? Or is the word of a foreign lord’s son good enough?’

  Urist held his defiant stare for a second or two, then looked away and ordered the other knight to mark Braxus down for the joust. ‘Seeing as your deeds are not renowned in this land you’ll enter the joust unseeded,’ he said.

  ‘What about the melee?’ asked Braxus, ignoring the implicit slight.

  Sir Urist shook his head. ‘Special event, to commemorate the alliance of the Houses of Markward and Lanrak,’ he said. ‘Knights serving either house only. But if you wish, you are eligible to enter the duelling event, should you wish to press any rivalry in single combat, for love or blood.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sir Braxus. Vaskrian guessed his guvnor already had some ideas about whom he might challenge.

  ‘You may pitch your tent on the south side of the enclosure, towards the riverside,’ continued Urist. ‘The jousts begin tomorrow at noon. May Ezekiel and Stygnos smile on you.’

  Braxus bowed curtly and stalked from the tent.

  Vaskrian’s spirits remained buoyant as they emerged into the morning sunlight. What with his arm he wouldn’t have been able to enter the melee anyhow. At least he’d get to cheer his guvnor on: one outlander rooting for another against the local talent. And what with everything they had been through, it would be good to do something normal for a change.

  Presently he had their pavilion set up and horses tethered and fed. Then he checked his master’s harness. His hauberk still had a rent where Andragorix’s black blade had sheared through the mail links. His sword was covered in dints and he only had a couple of jousting spears with blunted tips and hollow shafts. Chances are Braxus would need more than that if he couched half as well as he fought on foot. On top of that the bridle on his charger’s reins was worn down and would need replacing.

  Things to do, but that was good. He needed to keep busy, he reflected as he made his way through the tents towards the smithy. Across the Graufluss the turrets of Graukolos loomed, a spectacular backdrop for the coming tourney. Vaskrian felt glad of its presence: it made him feel safe.

  He hadn’t been the same since their mission, but then none of them had. He was certainly more pious: whenever recollection of the strange stones and horrid friezes of the Warlock’s Crown threatened to overwhelm him, the memory of the monks chanting pulled him back from the brink. He drank more now, and gloomy moods came upon him more often.

  Forcing himself back into the present, he glanced at the variegated pennants with their coats of arms as he passed them by: four lines in gules on a quartered yellow field, an ermine tincture of black and white diagonal stripes, a couchant leopard and a black dagger on a partitioned green and orange field… He didn’t recognise any of the armouries, but then he was far from home.

  Time was, that would have set him musing on his own coat of arms, but he’d long given up on that aspiration. The words of Earth Witch haunted him just as much as the things he’d seen at the Warlock’s Crown.

  By the time he reached the smithy’s tent he was in a melancholy mood. His arm and face were sore and itchy, and he still got an occasional twinge in his side from where he’d cracked his ribs at Staerkvit. But at least the cut he’d got in the fight against the outlaws had healed up. Something to be thankful for he supposed.

  Fie on Horskram and his damned adventures! What had they brought him but a miserable fate?

  ‘Dinted sword,’ he muttered, putting the blade down on a table near the forge and fishing in his sabretache for some coins.

  The bladesmith shook his head at the proffered coins. Vaskrian cursed as he realised he was only carrying Northlending currency. A shouted exchange followed, with neither party understanding the other: Vaskrian’s Decorlangue was rudimentary and the smith’s was non-existent. Eventually the matter was settled with much gesticulating and loud talk. Leaving the blade, Vaskrian stomped off to get hoodwinked by the moneychanger.

  Presently he was back, having been cheated just as expected. A Northlending sovereign was a sight bigger than a Vorstlending regum and worth twenty marks as opposed to a dozen – but that hadn’t stopped the moneychanger giving him just twelve silver pieces. ‘I do you favour, no interest!’ the money man had insisted in broken Decorlangue. Vaskrian had been sorely tempted to leave him with broken teeth to match, but thought better of it. At least his guvnor wouldn’t notice – no self-respecting noble ever handled money.

  He was paying the smith when a welcome face appeared.

  ‘Sir Torgun,’ he said, favouring the tall knight with a half bow. ‘It’s good to see you … I take it you’ve registered for the joust then?’

  ‘Well met, Vaskrian – of course.’

  Torgun smiled, but his eyes looked sad and troubled. Vaskrian had caught him staring at Lady Adhelina throughout the feast. When the Eorl had stood up to toast the future couple a pained look had crossed his rugged features. His guvnor hadn’t looked too pleased either. Vaskrian could understand why. Hengist made for a pitiful sight all right – another useless blueblood who just happened to be from the right crib. Apparently he’d entered the joust. That would be an entertaining sight – the Herzog had been so drunk he could barely stand, never mind sit a horse.

  ‘Don’t suppose I’ll be up to much,’ said the squire, trying to sound cheerful as he indicated his bandaged arm. ‘But at least I’ll get to watch you and Sir Braxus compete.’

  Torgun’s face clouded. There was no love lost between the two knights at the best of times – now by the looks of things they had a courtly love rivalry brewing. That would complicate things further and no mistake. Not that either of them would have much joy of the heiress of Dulsinor. It all seemed a bit pointless to Vaskrian – the Laws of Romance was the one part of the Code of Chivalry he’d never really understood.

  Sir Torgun stepped over to the smithy and dumped his cloven sword on the table. Fishing into his sabretache he surprised Vaskrian by pulling out a handful of silver marks and tossing them next to it.

  ‘I thought knights didn’t handle money!’ blurted Vaskrian, forgetting himself.

  Torgun turned to him an
d smiled wanly. ‘Unless they’re errants,’ he said. ‘I have no squire, remember?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Vaskrian, feeling suddenly foolish.

  The smith was gawping at the bastard blade, wondering who or what had chopped it in half. That brought another memory flooding back into Vaskrian’s mind, of swords that cut through steel like butter.

  He shuddered. Torgun placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Vaskrian? Are you well?’ he asked, looking genuinely concerned.

  The squire felt himself flushing beneath his burns. ‘Quite well, Sir Torgun,’ he said quickly, wanting to put on a brave face in front of his hero. ‘Why aren’t you wearing the White Valravyn any more?’ he asked, eager to change the subject.

  Sir Torgun shook his head. ‘I no longer serve the Order – my orders were to accompany you as far as… the warlock. Now I serve under my own auspices, though I would prefer not to display my family crest.’

  Vaskrian nodded. ‘I suppose the friar Horskram’s secrecy is rubbing off on all of us,’ he said.

  Torgun frowned. ‘Aye, Vaskrian, perhaps you’re right. Well, I shall see you tonight at the feast of honour – all the knights tilting tomorrow will be there.’

  ‘See you there,’ said Vaskrian, his heart lightening a little at the thought as they exited the tent. Without another word the knight turned on his heel and strode away, spurs jingling. Suppressing a sigh Vaskrian went to see about a new bridle and some more jousting spears.

  Having finished carving for his guvnor, Vaskrian retired with a curt bow and walked back down the length of trestle tables to where the other squires sat. His stomach was rumbling but his appetite was keener for more spectacle, and not the one currently on offer. The dwarf balancing on a small pony’s back continued to juggle knives with a flourish, while a group of troubadours played on.

  That was all well and good, but after feasting the herald would call on competing knights to seek the favours of their ladies. There were quite a few winsome damsels, though none as beautiful as Adhelina of Dulsinor, who sat crowned with white gold in a richly embroidered white gown.